


Crew#1420

by coolerpbeans



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Crewmate(s) (Among Us), Alien Impostor(s) (Among Us), Alternate Universe - Among Us (Video Game) Setting, Human Impostor(s) (Among Us), among us but i break game rules, among us but i try hard for a murder mystery novel, among us but i try hard to explain the lore of the game, among us but its badly written, purple POV, purple main character, you can tell i only spent a month on this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolerpbeans/pseuds/coolerpbeans
Summary: Crew#1420 has been traveling through the Silent Zone (a section on their route to the First Station that has an anomaly where no communication is possible) for five years, and after a short turn of events--an abandoned, unreported ship; blood on the walls; the death of the Captain--the now-Captain-less crew finds themselves unprepared for a manhunt of their own crewmates. From rusting wires, to stolen and rotten food, to open vents, they all find themselves arriving at the same harrowing, helpless conclusion as they drift in space:There is an imposter on this ship.
Kudos: 6





	Crew#1420

  
  


hehe this is for my auntie loren :) merry xmas

(Here’s just a list of pronouns for each character:

 **Purple** \- she/her; **Red** \- he/him; **Blue** \- they/them; **White** \- they/them; **Green** \- she/her; 

**Yellow** \- he/him; **Orange** \- she/her; **Black** \- she/her; **Cyan** \- her/him; **Brown** \- he/him; 

**Lime** \- she/her)

It’s like routine. Or really, it is. I rise from flimsy sheets, eyes blurring the sight of the grainy pale grey ceiling, and avert my eyes out the nearby window—no caution of day or night, week or month, year or hour; just stars blinking in the oblivion. Blankless light, stationary and nameless marks, and nothing of proof for the watches on our wrists. And, stretching, I head off. 

This time Orange is still at her bed, hunched over a clipboard with paper and pen. I don’t mind that—lunch doesn’t go for three hours. And a cook who serves you lunch and dinner, day after day, is best left unbothered. Instead I greet, smoothing the creases of my bedsheet, “Morning, Orange.” She nods her head. Her responses have their slow times. “Writing a letter?”

She nods once more. Then, when her hand seizes, she sets down her clipboard with a sigh. “What else is there to write your kid besides the usual? Besides, ‘I cooked the same thing for lunch this week. Same thing for dinner. Love you’?” The bed all made, I peek at the letter on her clipboard while she searches for the cap of her pen. Then, defeated, and as low as a mutter, “It doesn’t matter. Not like I can send it anyways.”

With a sympathetic _hm_ , I draw closer and kneel down on her bed, arms outstretched to match her own. Parent or not, spouse or none, the five years spent on this ship all provide the same deepening loss. Orange--her 10 year old son, left with her older sister. Blue--their vinyl collection and pet dog that he, heart wrenchingly, had to give away to an old friend. Yellow--his three family cats, bound to be reaching their old age by now. Black--highschool sweetheart of ten years. White--daily subscription to a magazine that shares stories about dog owners and their daily interactions with their pets; too allergic themselves to care for a pet of their own. And a couple others just the same--Green, Cyan, Brown, and Lime--with private thoughts that busy them through their day. 

But the Captain (oh, poor Captain), or Red, as he’s designated to be called, suffered perhaps the greatest loss of all--illness. A decay, spreading down his lungs, latching onto his throat; a poison unexpected despite all precautions. The sickness arose during the first few months we entered the Silent Zone--the Dark Place, the Oblivion, the Void; whatever seaman’s clueless name for a dark area of no communication, expanding for years and years. The Silent Zone, despite its unusual activity, was a common place to pass through (not like there was any other alternative way to go without charging us five more years). And yet, such a place was claimed to be so unknown and unusual that our radios failed to work. And thus, when Captain’s mysterious illness struck, we had no way of reporting it, and no way of contacting his wife, his dog, and his future children (before he left for the mission, he brought us an ultrasound image). 

Captain assures us that his recovery will be swift. Such a guarantee is what has kept us going forward. But it has not been fulfilled in five years. 

With a heavy heart, I leave Orange to the storage closet. Surely after breakfast has been served, a mess in the cafeteria is also guaranteed. “Purple!” I turn to the call, and wave at Blue down the corridor. They wave back. “Typical morning, huh?”

“Yep,” I say, reaching in the closet and pulling out a mop and a cart of cleaning equipment. “Did Brown leave another big mess again?” Brown, one of the pilots, was always one to move in a rush, especially in the morning. Therefore he was _guaranteed_ a slip up--a trip, a stumble, a crash--that would result in another spill of breakfast on the floor. 

Blue, one of the engineers, chuckles as they pass me by. “Only a minor stumble. I have to go fix some wires, again. Bye!”

At the cafeteria, Brown has indeed left a _slight_ spill of his favorite chocolate cereal--very much his favorite, he even begged to have five boxes stocked on the ship for this mission. I begin to mop up the mess, on the way sorting out some crumbs and trash on the tables, until I hear some shuffling at the entrance. I look up and--”Purple!”

I set my mop down. “Captain,” hurriedly, I rush to his side as he limps in his slow pace. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed. Where’s Lime?”

Captain laughs weakly, and I look worriedly for his crutch. “Oh, Purple, I just want some cereall. Ah, Brown left a mess again. I should remind him not to rush all the time.”

“Captain, please.” I take hold of his arm and direct him to a chair. “You’re sick.”

“I’m recovering, Purple. See? I couldn’t make it past my bedroom door last time,” Captain protests. Once he sits, I rush to the cabinets, fishing out a bowl, the cereal, and the milk. Then, he says, “Purple. I’m fine. Let a captain make his own breakfast for once.”

With a stubborn scowl, I peer at the cafeteria entrance, waiting for a worried Lime to come running. I’m surprised she, our medical nurse, was unaware of the Captain’s small ‘runaway’ act. But, with no other crew member in sight, I sigh, and help Captain out of his chair. Guiding him to the counter, I let him center the bowl, pour the cereal, and then the milk. Grumbling, I say, “I can’t believe you left Lime.”

“Lime needs her breaks,” he responds in between spoonfuls of cereal. “Geez, you all treat me like I’m an old man. I’ve still got time left.”

At such a careless statement, I bite back my protests and return to mopping up Brown’s mess. Maybe if we were back Home, Captain’s illness would seem like another cold flu. Allergies. But this is _space_. The Silent Zone. Years and years away from any help or contact. As Captain joyfully munches on his self-prepared breakfast, I grimace at the soft pauses in between his bites, the muffled coughs and struggling breaths. Making my way around the cafeteria, he lifts his feet and fluffy slippers off the ground with a grin, allowing me to mop beneath his seat and the table. 

Then, when he sips the last of his milk, I set the mop aside. “All done?”

“Nu-uh,” he smiles, wiping the corner of his mouth. And before I can assist him, he stands himself up and slowly brings himself to the sink. The water runs, soap pumps, and, wiping the dishes with a towel, he sets his bowl and spoon down with a--”ta-da! Look! I’m a big boy.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, well--”

And footsteps. “Captain! Oh, you’re--”

And the Captain turns gladly. “Lime!”

“You’re not supposed to le--”

“Captain!” It booms loud on the speakers as the alarm lights glow yellow. Lime stops in her steps, Captain straightens his back, and I stand idle. “We’re spotting something in our path, Captain.”

With no further information, Captain firms his eyes and, despite mine and Lime’s rushing protests, marches his slow pace out of the cafeteria. We catch up to him, of course, me in my own time after putting my equipment away; but as the alarm lights continue to blare yellow and Lime reprimands him for sneaking out during her bathroom break, he excuses our protests with a strict hand and a shake of his head. Slow pace, yes, but a still determined heart. 

We reach navigation, everyone else lining the entrance with worried and alert eyes. Captain passes them by, exchanging quiet nods and silent greetings to the engineers, scientists, pilots. Then, reaching the pilots and their station, he states, “What seems to be the problem?”

The pilots, Green and Brown, offer their polite nods in the Captain’s presence. Then, Green reports, pointing to a nearing grey dot in the distance, “As you remember, we saw this... _thing_ in our course a few days ago.”

“A rock, yes.”

“Well, we’re a lot closer now, and it doesn’t _look_ like a rock.” At such a statement, Captain leans on the navigation board to squint a harder look at the dot. 

He ponders the sight, twisting his lips in a bothered manner. Then, pulling away: “It’s a ship.”

“What?” Such a statement was not to be taken lightly. Even though the Silent Zone is a common path, because of the lack of communication, only one ship is allowed to pass through at a time. And once a ship passes through, they are required to report it immediately to allow another to pass. “Ho--”

“It looks like one of ours, too,” Captain surmises with his keen eyes. While keeping our respectful distance from him, we crowd the navigation board, squinting hard at the grey cluster in the distance. Perhaps a returning ship? But, passing or returning, each crew has to send a report when they can.

“How could it be one of ours? They confirmed that we were all clear to go,” Brown says, scratching his head. “If anything, they’re not supposed to be here.” Then, Captain switches on the radio. “Captain, what--”

He raises a hand. Picking up the microphone, he says, “This is Crew#1420, led by Red#733. Captain, are you there?”

Behind his back, Lime whispers, concerned, _“You know it won’t work_.”

And Captain pauses, as if reconsidering it himself, before talking once more: “Captain, this is Red#733. Why is your ship in our path?” A buzzing silence. What more could we expect from the Silent Zone? Then, “Do you need help?”

He waits a few more seconds, ears peaking at anything other than the white noise and silence. And, finally, he switches the radio off. Brown speaks. “What do we do?”

“We need to report it, right?” Blue asks. “How are we gonna do that?”

“They weren’t responding,” Orange says. She looks to me, worried. “What if they’re hurt? Or worse?”

We bite back the rest of our questions in front of the Captain. He stands before us all, back turned and hands shakingly keeping himself still. A multitude of things to report, and with no way whatsoever. And he switches the radio back on. “This is Crew#1420. We will be boarding you shortly.”

Lime gasps. Orange steps back. Then, Green, as Captain steps out of the room: “Captain, we can’t just board a ship we don’t know about. We should report it first.” Earning no response, she stutters, “M--what about the emergency communicator?”

As Captain departs further, Lime rushes to his side. 

**

Although I joined the crew as the reporter, always gathering info and data from the scientists and pilots and captain to send back, since we are in the Silent Zone, the one thing that I’m required to report (once I’m able to) is a simple, _Crew #1420 out of the Silent Zone._ Therefore for the five years on this ship, I’ve picked up the role of maintenance--cleaning, garbage-throwing, mopping--and assistance--helping Orange cook, Blue work the wires, etc. And so it was a big surprise to me, and everyone else, when Captain chose me as one of the five to go down into the unresponsive ship. Blue and White, the engineers, were sent to check on the condition of the ship, to explain for its inactivity; Yellow, one of the scientists, to report on what kind of research the unknown crew of the inactive ship was studying; Brown, the second pilot, to take over the ship if needed; and me, to find the other ship’s reporter logs in the database, if no reporter (or any other crewmate capable of responding) was on the ship.

“Thanks, Purple,” Yellow smiles after I pick out his helmet from under a pile of clothes. “D-don’t worry about that, I’ll clean it up when I get back.”

And I chuckle. As if the scientist can break enough time off for a simple clean-up. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Once we near the unresponsive ship, Green hovers over the switch to open up the hatch behind us. I stand amongst the other four, checking over my suit for any loose seams, poked holes, creases. Raising my head, I find Captain and those staying standing behind the air-tight door, talking amongst themselves. 

“Are you ready, Purple?” Blue laughs. He’s plenty gone out in space to repair the ship. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a breeze.”

And Captain speaks into the mic. “You guys know what to do.” We nod. Nervously, I fidget on my feet. “So don’t do anything stupid. And stay safe.”

Sparing no second, Captain looks to Green, exchanges a confirming nod, and Green pulls the switch down. The hatch opens, the air pulls, and gravity loosens as we fall, slowly, out of the ship. 

**

White and Blue guide us to a hatch on the inactive ship, and are very much surprised to find that it’s wide open. The ship, its entrance a dark abyss and miscelaneos floating objects, sucks us in, and once inside White and Blue rush to lock the entrance hatch shut. Skin growing hot and clammy, I reach up to my helmet, about to take it off when--”No,” White says, hands firm on my helmet. “There must be another hatch open. The air isn’t secure here.”

And with that said, I leave my helmet untouched, neck choking and reddening at the minute. Meeting Brown’s reassuring eyes, I dared not to think of what would become of me if I had taken it off. We turn on the flashlights on our sleeves, together venturing to the command center first. No captain seen, nor engineer, nor scientist, nor pilot; no crew at all. 

“Okay, White and I will go check on the power,” Blue says, flashlight searching around. Then, pointing his flashlight to the scientist: “Yellow, come with us, and we’ll drop you off at the lab.”

“Don’t worry, Purple, I’ll help you find the reporter logs,” Brown says. I nod, and with a misstep, I bump against the floating cargo, flashlight flickering around me in a panic. And he directs, “Hey, straighten up. The sooner we check this ship out, the faster we can get out of here.”

“Y-yeah.” I blink my eyes hard, and guide him down the hallways. “Sorry.”

Brown chuckles. “I guess you’re not really familiar with going outside of the ship, huh?” Shakily, I nod. “Try to relax and breathe slow. We don’t want you to run out of oxygen. Now, where do we go from here?”

“I--uhh,” I dart my flashlight around. “We need to find the upload center, where all the data is stored. If it’s working, that is.” Peering down the last stretch of the dark hallway, I turn right into the Admin room. 

Lining the wall are the computers, all idle and sleeping. Brown fiddles with the power buttons, but to no avail. “Well, the power’s down. White and Blue will probably get it working soon, though.” With a sigh, I direct my flashlight elsewhere. “Hey! Where you going?”

“We might as well explore the ship while we wait,” I shrug. Better to walk around than stand idle, letting my nerves grow. Brown, with his own shrug, follows along. We walk out into the cafeteria, and into more blearing darkness. Cabinets hanging open, chairs strewn aside. 

Then, I hear--”Hold on, step back!” 

Brown reaches an arm out, grabbing me by the shoulder. I stumble back, and, throwing him a glance, he points my flashlight to his: the bottom corner of a wall, shielded by another chair, and marked by a dried, spilt stain. “W-what is that?”

“Blood.” I step back further, frantically scanning the room. Under the tables, between the chairs, in the shadows; searching for whatever cause of such bloodstain. 

“W-we should go find White and Blue,” I say, edging back down the hallway. Without hesitation, Brown nods, and we huddle together, light guiding our frantic eyes. We cut through storage, cheek turning at any clatter or skittish sound in the distance. 

At the buzzing in Electrical, I turn sharply, and Brown lets out a breath at the sound of--”Hey! You guys, the power’s not up yet, but--”

“We need to leave,” I spit out, fidgeting by the door. Brown peeks his head in, flashlight scanning every wall, corner, and surface in the room. “Brown and I saw blood in the cafeteria. Where’s Yellow?”

“Wha--blood?” White looks to Blue. “We just went here after checking on the engines and reactor. Y-yellow’s at the lab. There wasn’t anyone else on the ship, right?”

“We didn’t look around much,” Brown responds. “I didn’t even get to Navigation. What about the engines, though?”

White shakes their head. “Nothing was damaged, but it was powered off. All of it. The wires are worn down, though, they need fixing.”

“I-I don’t think we should stay on this ship long,” I quip, hands shaking. Standing in the hallway, shrouded in the dark, lights only forward; I was feeling the heat. “Whatever reason for that blood stain, I don’t want to stay and find out what that is. We need to find Yellow.”

Silent and tense, the four of us stick close and shakily step together. White takes the front, leading us to the lab, and I say in the back, my free hand trembling in Blue’s hold. Now in closer proximity, I could see the same heat itching Brown’s neck, feel the same trembles in Blue’s hand, and hear the same hitched breaths from White. It’s a slow and telling trek, passing the Lower Engine, the Reactor, the Upper Engine, all the way until we reach the lab. White hovers at the entrance of the room, flashlight stuck on the ground. “Y-yellow? You there?”

A distant _beep_. A clatter of glass. Brown adds, “Come on, buddy, we gotta leave.”

Silence. “Yellow?”

“Where else did he go?” I ask, turning around and darting my flashlight elsewhere.

“He was only supposed to go to the lab,” Blue responds. “What, do you think he--”

I turn my flashlight to the left. “Ah!” 

There, waiting with a grin and a wheezing laugh, Yellow stands at the other end of the corridor, untouched and unscathed. “Ha--you guys should’ve seen your faces! You were like--”

Marching forward, White grabs Yellow by the arm and drags him to our huddled formation. Amidst the scientists’ splutters and laughs, White says, “No time for jokes. We have to leave now.” Yellow protests. “We found blood in the cafeteria. There might be someone on the ship.”

“W-what?” The scientist now confused, we pull him into our group of hand holding and precarious flashlight-holding. “I-I was just in the lab the entire time. I only left to surprise you guys.”

“You didn’t see anyone else? Anything else?”

Yellow bumps right next to me, both of us uncomfortable in the back. I offer a shaky, trying smile. He responds, “N-no. I was just looking at their samples. They were examining a...rock-thing.”

Blue looks back at us. “Rock thing?”

Yellow opens his satchel and holds said rock-thing up--a simple skipping rock we’d normally pass by. Just another corridor away from the exit, Yellow proceeds to tell us about the lack of written studies in the lab, the small imprints of a scientist at work here and there, and the rock, it’s normalcy, and its unexplained presence. At the hatch we entered through, Blue and White hurriedly, though struggling, open it. Still in place, our ship waits, it’s own hatch waiting. We all band together, Brown and White on both ends and holding the frame of the hatch, before pushing off together towards our ship. Then Yellow starts coughing.

“Y-yellow, are you okay?” I ask, grappling his arm. His coughing throws us off, and breaks our drift to the ship. He starts clawing at his helmet. “What’s going on?”

“I--maybe it’s his allergies?” Brown suggests, holding the scientist by his shoulders. 

“In his own suit?” We lose momentum, drifting off course. White, at the front, scrambles, attempting to fight against the pull and jerks of Yellow’s coughs, and to our rescue Black comes, attached to a line and reaching her hands out. She grabs the closest, White, who grabs Blue, who latches onto me, and I hold onto Brown as he carefully carries Yellow to safety. Onto the ship we collapse, the hatch closes, and gravity welcomes us on the floor. 

Lime runs in first, taking Yellow’s helmet off. As he splutters, she asks, “What happened?”

“We were just leaving, a-and he started coughing.” As Lime examines Yellow’s status, the rest of us slowly pull onto our feet and those that stayed on ship open the door with smiles of relief--and, upon spotting Yellow’s distress, with echoes of _what happened?_ Blue continues, “Is it his allergies?”

“I don’t know, but stay back--he might’ve caught something.” We try to maintain our distance, attempting not to crowd Yellow and Lime, but watch from afar with concern to see the scientists’ neck redden, his fingers stagger, his eyes pry with tears. She manages to get most of his spacesuit off, then, she says, “I need his bag. His pen.”

I pick up his bag, thrown a few feet from him. Quickly, I fish through the bag, digging through its pockets and zippered contents. Then, with a strong grip, I latch onto a thin cylindrical tube and toss it to Lime’s awaiting hands. She removes the cap of the pen and jabs it into his upper thigh. 

Only now does the Captain arrive, slow and with Orange by his side. Behind him, Cyan wheels in a bed, and Lime--on her own, as requested--pulls the now heaving Yellow onto the bed. Captain stays back--also, as requested--with softer eyes and a firm glance down the hall, watching Lime wheel the coughs and wheezes on the way to Medbay. Then, he turns to us, rubbing his temple with a heavy sigh. “I’m just glad you guys came back fine. What did you find down there?”

Leaving the hatch, we follow the Captain to the debriefing room. Brown begins, as he’s to change his suit and get back to Green at Navigation as soon as possible, with the simple report, _I wasn’t able to reach navigation, so, I have nothing to report_. He leaves to his quarters in his rushed manner, and Yellow goes next, eager to return to his studies. “I found a rock under study in the lab, but no reports written or accessible anywhere. And, judging by the materials used, the things moved...I don’t think there was much of anyone working there.”

Captain nods, and Yellow leaves immediately to change out of his suit as well. Blue goes next, White having already left for both of their tasks. “There was still fuel and power. But the engines, everything is powered off. We tried to fix it, you know, turn the lights on, but then Brown and Purple came and told us to leave.”

Captain looks back at me. It’s hard to not shy away from it--even five years before, first stepping in front of him, such a stern glance would wrap me in a cold sweat. Before he utters a word, and as Blue takes his turn in departing, I explain, “Brown couldn’t reach Navigation because he wanted to escort me to find the reporter’s logs. The power was off, though, so while we were waiting, we found blood in the cafeteria. And then we thought best to find everyone else and get off the ship.”

Behind him, the others--Black, Cyan, Orange--gasp and murmur worriedly. _Blood? Why blood? How much?_ Then, Captain nods, sweat dies down, and I leave. 

**

News of the blood, the rock, the abandoned ship--all done and dusted between the ten of us, because, leaving that blooded, emptied ship behind, came more concerning news: the Captain. His bed ridden days, sickly walks, mumbled coughs; Lime’s worried visits for tea and soup, her late night sleeps, her tired rambles at the cafeteria table. _He was getting better._ No, last week was a different comment. _He never sleeps. Even after he gets tucked in. He can’t keep his food down. He barely has the strength to get up sometimes_ . And we ask, well, is there any reason why? Any cause figured out? And she, and the scientists, can only manage a shake of their heads. _Maybe Home will figure it out._

And the concept of Home was one we rarely thought of. Too many variables, too many questions--what will happen when we leave the Silent Zone and report of Captain’s illness? Will he even let us report it? What if they can’t help? What if we have to turn around? And this last one, too daunting to ask, too bold to even bother answering. _What about his family?_

“If it’s getting worse, then…” Brown murmurs in the bunk room, preparing for his few hours rest. It’s during the ‘dark hours’, the set time at which most of us close the lights and knock out. He settles into his bedsheets, staring up at the ceiling, and I sit on my mattress, preparing to do the same. “What if we did that to him? What if, I don’t know--”

“No, that’s not possible,” Yellow whispers back sharply from his own bed. “If Captain got anything from out there, we would’ve caught it too. A-and we changed. We took measures.”

Silently, the rest of us wait in our sheets for another doubt. On my left, Black lies in hers, hand curled around her open locket; and on my right, Lime rests ansty, a book strewn beside her. I bite back my questions, knowing they all wonder the same on their own: _What else could’ve done that to him? Made him more sick? What if it is our fault?_

  
  


And I find it horrible that Space allows for long wondering. And yet, of its own accord, Space ended routine.

After a number of days, we all wake during one of the dark hours to a blaring, blue alarm. Illuminating the dark hallways, the silent windows, the content bedsheets. Green wakes first--a bit too well adapted to emergency alarms as the pilot--then she wakes White (the closest), and then me, and then Orange, and so on. _It’s the blue alarm,_ Green says, frantic as she throws a jacket on. And amidst our confusion-- _What does that mean, Green?_ \- _-it means someone’s hurt_. 

Immediately, we all dart to the Captain’s cabin. Hallway lights illuminate after our marching steps, everything ignored and unprepared for. A silent, desperate, naive march; and through the blurry exhaustion that clouds over my eyes I can only focus on forward. _What happened to the Captain? Or is it Lime? Where are they? What about Brown?_ We turn the corner, just a few seconds away from the cabin. And Black calls out, a heaving mile ahead of us, “Lime? Captain?” A muffled yell. And so Black repeats, “Lime! Captain!”

We hurry down this hall; the same one that, throughout our normal day, we pause and nod at on our way past. And then, reaching the door, we finally close in on Lime, crouched beside a bed and an unconscious Captain. With heavy pants, our rushed steps screech to a stop by the doorframe, and Lime, with a sigh of relief, says, “He’s fine. He’s okay.”

Reassured, Green leaves to inform Brown of the deescalated emergency. But us, unconvinced, barter a reluctant step inside. Captain lays on his bed, eyes closed and breaths hushed, and a sallow arm hung out over the side. And Lime rests on a stool, rubs her eyes in mid-sentence, “I left for a bit to get some water. But when I came back, he...it’s almost like he was dead. I thought I couldn’t hear him breathe. So I switched the alarm.”

“But he’s okay now?” Orange asks, peeking out from behind me. “He’ll be fine?”

And Lime retains that solemn, tired face. The same one she comes back to the bunks with, the same one when she visits for a cup of water, and this same one we’ve learned to adopt now. Another hard breath. Then, “I don’t think so. He’s not getting any better anymore.” She looks to him and his pale face. And I can see it now--the sunken in, hollow remains of the Captain who first stepped aboard. And what could Space do that is much more haunting than that? “I think it’s time.”

We wait until Captain wakes--me, meandering in the hall restlessly; Brown, with his coffee and nervous feet, returning to Green in Navigation; Orange, preparing another meal; nearly everyone back to their tasks, hesitantly and impatiently, leaving Lime and I behind. Our conversations wander between what happened back at the abandoned ship, the Captain’s photobook, Lime’s wife back at home, and my own awaiting life, measured for another five-year or so pause. 

Then, from his cabin, we hear a shifting in the sheets, a small groan, an arching breath. Lime stands immediately, and I following, and we switch on the Yellow alarm. In the five minutes it takes for the other crewmates to arrive, we tidy the room up--wheel the empty cups and mugs to the kitchen, pick up the blankets and pillows, sort out the Captain desk in his office. And Captain regains his clarity patiently, with a warm mug of tea in his lap and his notebook beside him. 

When the rest of the crew arrives--this time, Green in Brown’s place--it is Green herself who delivers the news. The dwindling days, sharpening hours, empty orders. Green takes Lime’s words, the nurse standing in the corner, and delivers them in her orderly way. At some moments, Black interjects, or Lime herself, or Cyan with his studies, but it all boils down to the final resolution, a hesitant order. “...so we think it might be best that we think...about enacting your last measures as Captain.”

That is Green’s final statement, probably mulled over and rehearsed on her mind in Navigation. We stand by the doorway, still patient and proper, minding our space outside of the Captain’s bubble. 

There is a reason why Captain is Captain. Firm, yes; strict, of course; intuitive, as assured. Everything you could come up with on a checklist, everything to search for in a job application. In this five years, there’s never been a mishap, an error, a misjudgement he has not accounted for. In the beginning he was so strong, his presence enough to bring about a faith in our chest, and now, after months of second-glances and second-guesses, we keep that in our minds, still. But now Captain sits on his bed, tea in his lap, notebook in the other, and a silence that was his job to fill. 

After a few pondering moments, he speaks. He looks to us. Faith unwavering. “Okay.”

  
  


**

Funerals in space are not really accounted for. They are, in the written word, and in the blaring precautions, and in the strict orders--but in the face of it, down in the hall, in its own cabin, and smothered in its bedsheets and tea-tree oil aroma and now-lukewarm ginger tea; no, they’re not. Lime finds Captain during the dark hours again, sounds the alarm, and in our stiff shock, Black finds the guidebook from Medbay on how to properly dispose of a deceased person. 

_Step 1 - Alert Home of the passing._ Not possible in our state.

And the _Step 2, 3,_ and _4_ s, they all follow the same unknowing and distant mind. _Put the body in a body bag. Eject it into space_ , Black paraphrases, voice hushed in that cabin. Despite her protests, we force Lime to rest, trying our best for something less-than an orderly tone. _Please_ , we beg her. _Get some sleep_. 

In our slow time, we follow the steps. All tasks and research pauses; half of the crew handles the body and its disposal, and the other half tidies the cabin and sanitizes everything. I choose the latter, unable to bear that sight again of Captain, stuck in his bed, tea in hand, and breath subsiding. 

Let me reminisce of his last moments. He’d surrendered to our requests. Let his firm gaze fall. He took a pen in hand and, recording this wake of sanity and clarity, wrote down his orders. A short list, which worried us. And, to execute a certain task, it required us to help walk Captain through the ship. 

_1 - lock the vents._ 14 vents across the spaceship that, struggling to kneel onto his knees, Captain locked access to. A standard measure that Captain most likely learned during his training. _The vents are unsafe,_ he explained. _Dangerous to navigate._ The vents usually required Captain’s approval anyways to be accessed, and very rarely was there a need to do so. 

_2 - locking Captain’s keycard_. It was strict and defined and ruled out--misuse of the Captain’s keycard to override anything would deem the mission and the crew compromised, and everyone put on leave upon their immediate return. This, he hid in secret.

_3 - Captain’s final words._ Again, in secret and alone. Only to be read by his family.

Another alarm. The Captain’s body is ready. We meet him at the hatch, all covered up in his body bag, and surrounded by the rest of the crew. All but one of us--Lime, in her snappy and tired-eyed stubbornness--stand behind the door, Green waiting by the switch. No last words allowed nor offered. And, with a solemn nod from Lime, Green pulls down the switch, and the hatch opens. 

Lime sticks tethered, by her feet, to the ship. And Captain goes, drifting in as such a slow manner as he once walked across the ship. Idle and stern and unchanging, now just another debris passing by in space. What could be more different than a rock, a ball of dust, a breath of wind, and now this dead man in this oblivion? Blue muses these thoughts. “A sad sight.”

I think for myself the shock wore off on the walk back to the bunk room. Our stay from hereon would continue with much less direction. No mornings, mopping the cafeteria, and haggling with the Captain over his own breakfast. No passing him in the halls and paying our respectful nods, with nothing more than a fleeting thought. And, reaching my bed and sinking into the mattress, I respond with a shaky breath at the thought and its inevitability--of typing out those words alongside, _Crew #1420 has made it out of the Silent Zone and is proceeding on their mission_ , in what forgotten demeanor: _Red#733 is dead._ Our Captain is dead. 

  
  


**

Despite our expectations for a regular silence to continue, maintenance seems to hinder our time to mourn. Blue and White have begun to call me from one end across to another end of the ship, stressingly bothered by the sudden wear-and-tear of the wires in all spots. A few days ago, Orange went in the food storage room and gasped at the sight of a chunk of our supply, now rotten and spoiled, spilt all over the floor-- _we didn’t lose too much food,_ she informed us then, _but I found a hole knawed into one of the boxes. And I don’t know what kinda space-pest could’ve gotten on our ship to do that._ And more surprisingly, we were interrupted at lunch by the late-arriving scientists’ protests that, for some reason, their digital reports and studies were not being uploaded automatically, and that now there’d be the tiring task of working it manually. 

Issue after issue, small in their size but excessive in their amounts. And only when I’m able to catch my breath between helping Blue at electrical and Orange in the kitchen and downloading the data at the Lab for the scientists is once I realize everyone darting around me and frustrated to their wits, busy in their own ways with tasks more frustrating than ever. Perhaps another thing to add to the future report: _Ship is in need of dire repair._

In the kitchen, helping Orange sort through the boxes for _still-good_ food, the overhead lights flicker and dim. Orange hums. I say, “The lights need repairing again. I guess I should tell Blue and White.”

Before I stand to my feet, a loud _kshhh_ snaps in the air and the lights altogether die out. After a series of distant _clicks_ throughout the ship, I surmise that this black-out has occurred everywhere else. Orange switches on the flashlight on her suit’s sleeve, and I do the same. 

And when the cold blue light from my suit flicks on, I realize with a short breath the familiarity of this situation--deep in some dark abyss, guided only by a shaky line of light, and everything a silent, waiting mystery. Quickly, I meet Orange by the door, and we huddle together on route to Electrical. 

“The lights really are out everywhere,” Orange murmurs, our footsteps echoing down the hall behind us. “It’s never happened before, right?”

“No, you’re right,” I respond, just as hushed. I try not to remind myself of it--wandering out in the abandoned ship, and spotting that dried blood stain on the wall--that no such thing can occur here, on this ship, _our_ ship; and Orange, spotting such discomfort, makes no sound as she takes my free hand. 

Well on our way to Electrical, however, the lights flicker back on. Still, we continue on our walk together, and find everyone else--except Brown and Green--waiting by the entrance as well. Orange and Black separate to let us peek in the room, and we find Blue and White crouched by the lightbox, surveying the wires and the surface. Orange asks, “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know,” Blue responds, rubbing their eyes. “We’ve fixed these wires over and over. Fixed and calibrated those stuff over there,” Blue directs back to the other machinery by the wall. “But it’s like it’s still broken every time.”

“Is it getting worse?”

Blue looks back at the lightbox, back at White examining the wires. “Maybe.”

“Purple,” White calls, and I step forward, expecting another minimal task to do for their stressed selves. But then they say, “I think you should take clear notes on this. So we can report it back Home. They’ll want to hear about this.”

“Every ship has its own small issues,” Cyan commentates as I move in, pulling out my notebook from my back pocket. “Is it really necessary to report it back? I mean, what can Home do about it?”

“If it’s because of the ship itself, then they need to know that there’s something wrong with all the other ships they’re sending out,” White responds, voice resonating over my shoulder as I walk in the back, noting down anything I can see--the wires spilling from beneath small metal patches unhinged and unscrewed, the repeated marks from constantly rewiring; and then, shocking, forbidden, and unsuspecting: the loose screws, scooted off into the grooves in the floor, taken from the locked vent.

“No.” It comes out of my mouth before I can catch it. 

White, the closest, walks over. “What’s wr--oh, no.”

Such a response draws the rest of the crew to the back corner of the room. And they all see it--the vent that, perhaps a week before, Captain was kneeled beside as he locked access to it, now loose by its screws. We first look to White and Blue, and they respond with innocence and shaking heads. “I mean, how could we have done that?” Blue asks. “How could any of us do that?”

They were right. Captain locked his card as well. In a suspecting manner, we leave Electrical; and, together in a murmuring herd, we head to to the next vent in the lower engine, and the other in reactor, the next in the security room, and one after another, all the way through the ship before coming back together in a circle.

All vents were loose and unscrewed; a feat only allowed by Captain himself. In the cafeteria, we sit, an unsure discussion waiting in the air. Green leaves Brown stuck in navigation, where we timidly passed through and gasped over the tampered vents, and, with a heavy sigh, sinks into her seat with the comment, “So, flickering lights, spoiled food, open vents; can’t seem to catch a break anymore.”

Our response is minimal. But I understand it. Amidst Orange sitting beside me, Black across from me, Yellow at the other table, and everyone else; it’s the same confusion, the same doubt, and the same uncertainty, centered around, really, one thing: _Who’s to speak first?_ Who’s to say the first order? Who’s to take up that room, that ginger tea and notebook, who’s to take the Captain’s role? And if we could wait any longer, what can we do other than listen?

Orange bites her lip. And then Green, with another sigh, says, “O-okay--” A pause, as she chokes on her words. “--uh, well, we have just a bit longer until we leave the Silent Zone. And then from there, it’s one month to the First Station. S-so, we last that long, ditch the ship, and continue on the mission. Right?”

It sounds clear. It sounds definite, perhaps enough. But then Cyan says, “What if more problems arise before we’re able to leave the Silent Zone? Enough to break the ship?”

And then, Blue adds, “White and I have been trying to fix everything, but they just get worse. We weren’t prepared for this.”

“But there’s no other choice,” Black protests. “What else can we do? Wait five years for another ship to pass through? We need to try to get out.”

“I-I don’t know. Something caused _that_ to our food, made it rot. Maybe the same thing that’s been causing all these problems,” Orange interjects, fingers fiddling on top of her knee, bouncing up and down. “And even though we didn’t lose that much food _that_ time, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. And if it does, I don’t think we’ll have enough to last until we reach the station.”

“There’s still nothing we can do about that,” Black reminds. “I-It’s not like we can catch some space-mouse on the ship, o-or get food from out of nowhere. We can’t even call for food. All we can do is move forward.”

And, with that said, we sit silently with our last option. Black was right--we can’t call for help, nor wait for help in the situation we’re in now. But then those words come back; _we can’t even call for food. We can’t even call._

_Call_ \--”What about the emergency communicator?” And they look at me, just as they’d before when Green asked over a week ago, a stern Captain ignoring her protests. Except there was no Captain to disagree with. “We find the communicator and wait for help to come, right?”

The emergency communicator was only a myth. Never covered in training, written about in our manuals, or gone over by the Captain. But it was real--it had to be. Why would Home think to throw us into the Silent Zone with no form of communication whatsoever? 

“I don’t even think it’s real,” Blue whispers, running a hand through their hair. Beside them, Yellow lays a hand on their shoulder. “And if it is, where do we start looking for it? How long will it take to look over this entire ship?”

“The odds of finding that communicator are the same odds of us getting to the First Station alive,” Cyan says bitterly. “And we haven’t even gotten started on those vents. The broken wires, the holes in our food supplies--”

“And what are you saying?” Orange asks, matching Cyan’s dry tone with her own. And she scoffs, “Sabotage? Space mice? Sudden mainframe failure?”

Cyan grits his teeth and responds sharply. “I’m saying that there’s something going on, and we’ve been oblivious to it!”

Maybe five years is too long together. I don’t know--we all have our fights, our disagreements, our shortcomings. Before, Brown could wake everyone up with his loud morning routines of blasting that one mixtape (gifted to him by his boyfriend) through his earbuds, until we held an intervention; Orange used to season everything with spice until Captain and Blue fell bedridden (neither of them could handle even a pinch of spice); and, faintly I can recall, the three scientists had a feud some two years ago over the results of some lab study, and went nearly a week without talking. 

But drama was something to never focus on. We always had one mission and one reminder. And perhaps that’s on Captain’s fault. 

“Well, you can’t just sit here and make a big deal out of it,” Orange snaps, and, sitting beside me, I can see her clenching her fists. “We have to decide something, we need to do something.”

And Green sinks into her arms, a frustrated sigh, “But there’s nothing we _can_ do.”

_We can keep going and possibly starve. Wait for help and starve. Call for help but to no avail. We just need food. We need to get more food. But what if--_ ”What if we go back?” I ask. “B-back to that ship, from a week ago? They’ve gotta have some food, some gas, something.”

“What--that ship you said had blood on the wall?” Black questions, concern rising. 

“Who’s to say the ship has food?” Green asks. “There’s a reason why it was abandoned.”

I can see the tension. What’s a reporter to know about the food, the wires, the ship at all? What’s a crewmate like me, who’s no engineer nor pilot nor scientist, to butt in with her own words? Blue shakes their head. “You told me about the blood. Why would you want to go back there?”

I find Blue, White, and Yellow’s eyes meet mine, all a wide and frantic protest of guilt. _What if we did that to Captain? What else could’ve done that? And you want to go back there?_

But I say it out loud: “It’s either we keep going, run out of food, and starve without anyone knowing. But we can take a chance and go back, leave with whatever we can get, and maybe with some better odds at getting out of here.”

  
  


**

I stand in the hatch again, suited up and helmet on. Yellow behind the door, replaced by Lime beside me; and White, opting out similarly, replaced by Black on the other side of me. All of us stand--Brown, Lime, Black, Blue, and I--waiting for Green to pull the switch. And, all eyes on me, an uncomfortable feeling. _This is your idea. This is your order._ Green keeps her eyes on me. So I’m the one to nod.

Green pulls the lever, and we drop into a slow fall, a timely descent back down to the abandoned ship. 

There’s not much worth to recall from the week before--turning the ship around, rationing our supplies (one meal a day, though we all scooped up portions from our plate to share with each other ), tending to more problems, and drowning out more sleep. After my suggestion, the ship fell back into a similar buzz like before. Running around, stress and ripping wires amok, and vents neglected. Empty food boxes, unsaid. 

Lime’s hand guides me back to the present; she grabs me, tight and quivering, and I squeeze back a small pulse of comfort. I can’t fathom whatever reason led her to volunteer in Yellow’s place, nor what wreck her mind must be in, visiting _here_ of all places. Orange grabs my mind, as Black grapples onto hers, Blue in the middle, and Brown steering us all down to the ship. 

We step back into the dark abyss, a floating intermission blocking out all the stars. And, instead of dividing up, we stick together. “Okay,” Blue says after closing the entry hatch behind us. Then, with a firm reminder, “Keep your helmets on, the air still isn’t safe here.”

Silently, we group into close formation and carefully trek through the ship and up into the storage room. Intentionally, we go through the engine and reactor rooms--that White and Blue once crossed through--and avoid the cafeteria. 

I hang in the back with Lime--her adamance a trembling, stubborn request to keep an eye out in the back--and we dart our flashlights behind us feverishly and with heavy breathes. At the front, Brown and Blue lead the way, flashlights just as wavering and unstable. 

And then: the storage room. A dark abyss with a cluster of mounds and floating cargo; we enter through one of many doorways, and while Orange, Lime, and Blue tackle the tall pile of said cargo, Black, Brown, and I station ourselves at each doorway with our lights glaring down all the precariously long hallways. 

I stand positioned at the hallway, where, on the right is the entrance to Admin, where Brown and I once stood. And, at the very end of the hall, the cafeteria, where we ventured to together. Black calls to those in the middle, “So? Find the food yet?”

“It’s hard to discern the food from the _other stuff_ in the dark,” Orange responds, voice muffled in the midst of many floating storage boxes. And, she informs the other two, “And I hope you guys aren’t trying to open them, if you do, the food will be compromised by the air.”

“Y-yeah, I definitely wasn’t trying to do that,” Lime yawns. 

“O-okay, I found one box,” Orange says, light shining on the label _Food_ and a clear-blue glass peeking into the contents. She shakes it, daintily. “We won’t find out how much is inside, or if it’s even good anymore, until we get back to the ship.”

That being said, Orange casts the box to the side, separate from the others, and continues in her search. As the minutes go by, Lime and Black begin to separate boxes of their own, and the pile of cargo gradually divides and spreads across the room. For us, Brown, Black and I stick our eyes to the creeping oblivion down the halls, unsure of what to expect. 

I try to reassure myself. _We have food now. We can make it out of here. Right? The wires don’t matter. The space pests don’t matter. The vents don’t matter. Just the food. Just time._ But no. I can’t seem to accept that. _There’s something more to take from this ship_. 

So I walk down the hall. “Purple!” It’s Black, looking up from her boxes. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m gonna go try to find this ship’s emergency communicator,” I respond. 

“What?” The others murmur, and Black stands, stern. “You can’t leave us. Not when we’re--”

“Okay--I’m gonna go to Admin first, skip to the bunk room, and then the Captain’s cabin, that’s it,” I say. “I’ll make sure to come back soon. And those rooms are nearby, so, if you need me to come back, you can just shout.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Blue calls from his doorway. 

“It doesn’t hurt to look,” I respond, and disappear down the hall. 

I return to Admin. The room is, as it usually is in these ships, bare; little shelves or spaces to store things, and it takes a quick walk-through to find no emergency communicator here--although, I’ve never seen it, so there’s little to work off of. In a hurried walk past the cafeteria, I reach the bunk room, never daring to jerk my flashlight in search of a dried blood stain. _I know where it is. I know how it looks like_. 

The bunk room provides nearly too much space to store belongings; a bedside table with a drawer and a bottom shelf for each crewmate, a long cabinet in the back for extra necessities (shoes, bags, blankets, electronics), the bathroom, and a closet room by the front for more storage. I start from the back, footsteps slow as I enter a narrowed room alone, and to my surprise, I find the back cabinet, for the most part, empty (A few folded bedsheets at the back corner, a pillow strewn across one shelf). The first few beds and their side tables also prove empty, for no reason I can surmise. 

But between my fourth sigh and my fifth frantic glance at the doorway, my hands close around a firm, rectangular object caught in the thin bedsheet of another vacant bed. Almost shocked, I pull at the sheets and toss aside the pillow, and raise into the light a book. A thin width, medium size, a minimal design--titled, 

_Crew_ _#___1667_____

_Reporter Logs_

_by Purple_ _#__235____

The reporter notebook. Hidden in between sheets this whole time. (Usually the reporters upload digital copies if their handwritten notes were to go missing) What I was looking for in Admin was here, just a few paces away from the dried blood scene in the cafeteria. Taking what I can get, I grab and leave, not bothering to check the rest of the beds. 

One foot into the hallway, as I attempt to decipher which direction to go to avoid the cafeteria and reach the Captain’s cabin quickly, I hear, echoing in the distance, “Purple!”

Immediately, I run, book tucked under my arm and my other arm directing the wobbling flashlight before me. It’s a harrowing run through the cafeteria, as I stick to the wall and keep my hand stern before me, allowing no deviation beside or behind me. I hear in the distance the same white noise and unexplained echoes of normalcy--chairs squeaking, space-thrown objects, squeaking floors--but I grit my teeth through it, running to Orange’s call resonating behind me. 

And then, the storage room. “What?” I reach, panicked and out of breath. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we just finished finding the food boxes,” Black says, hauling two cubes of food into her arms. Around the room, everyone takes a box or two, eyeing my sweating self with confusion. “What? Did you find the emergency communicator?”

I pause and gulp, feeling the sweat settle beneath the warmth of my suit. “No. I found this, though. It’s the Reporter Logs.” The mood falls; I know what they were expecting. “I-if you guys want, we can search the rest of the ship, together.”

And Lime shakes her head. “No. Let’s go back.”

I take a box. 

  
  


**

_Mission: Get more food from the abandoned ship_ is declared a success, when all five of us haul back to the ship some fifteen boxes--ten of which were still filled to the brim with still-frozen food. _It’s more than enough_ , Orange says with a relieved smile. _And, to ward off space-pests, I’m duct-taping the corners and double-wrapping everything._ We celebrate by eating dinner, for the first time, together, still offering portions and spoonfuls to each other, though. 

And with brighter smiles, we set ourselves back on course, to the First Station. Breaking wires--yes, still. Flickering lights--like routine. And the vents, though Blue and White have re-screwed--still meddled with. But I can feel it at the dinner table, scarfing down food together, it’s this desperate please: _let us have this, please._

The following days, however, are far too routinely busy to match the same energy. Although with some relief, as we rush down the halls and pass each other by with silent nods, the ship continued in its whine for repair. I find myself in between exchanging words between White and Blue (both of them separate and spread out across the ship, and too occupied to meet each other) regarding more maintenance, helping Cook prepare the food for lunch, and routinely uploading information from the lab on the scientist’s studies. 

And speaking of the scientists--their usual drawn-out days of preparing for their work once outside the Silent Zone comes to a pause as their fascination with the _rock_ Yellow retrieved from the abandoned ship grows. A week into performing studies on the rock, and, as Yellow reports to us at the weekly debriefing: _no anomaly in the results are showing up. We can’t seem to find a reason why that crew would be studying that rock. Just some random space debris._

During the dark hours, I’m jerked awake by a wide-eyed Lime. She sits on my bed, hand tight on my arm, and frantically darting her eyes to the doorway. I sit up, asking, “What’s wrong?”

“I-I was just, walking around,” Lime whispers, rubbing her tired eyes. Oh, poor Lime. “A-and I heard footsteps. When I was walking back here.”

Before I ask anything, I survey the room. Except for one (Brown, stuck with his night shift at Navigation), all the beds were filled, and all crewmates accounted for. Everyone asleep, as I once was, and as Lime hopes to be. So I ask, “Who was it?”

It wouldn’t be Brown, would it? She says, “I don’t know. I was in the halls, b-between the lower engine and the upper engine. And I heard it, it was so distinct.”

Then, it can’t be Brown; he has no reason to go back there. He shouldn’t be back there. I blink the grogginess out of my eyes. White, across from my bed, peeks at us from beneath their sheets (a light sleeper, an avid critic of Brown’s old morning routine). My eyes return to Lime, whose quivering hands match her pale and stressed state. I bite back my speculations. “M-maybe it was Brown.” She eyes such reassurance with doubt. “You can’t blame him for wandering. He must be, I don’t know, stretching his legs. You know he gets restless.”

She bites her lips, reluctant to agree. But I pull back her hands, responding with an affirming _squeeze_. The quivers subside, slowly, into my firm hold. And she sighs. “O-okay. I need to get some rest.”

Before Lime pulls away, I open my arms wide with an offer. And she takes it, weighing me back onto my mattress with another deep breath and a scuffle of her feet as she climbs into my bedsheets. And, before long, she rests, quivers deepening down into warmth. Spend five years with ten other people, and you find it all too often that one or two others are piled on the same bed (sometimes, beds pushed together) for a comfort of our own warmth. Space, we learned just a day in, is cold.

But I have yet to rest on my own. In this dark room, I can count ten patterns of inhales and exhales, all so distinct and recognizable, and, like sleep, it eludes me what could have been those footsteps in the corridor down by Electrical. _Electrical. The wires. The vents._

Brown couldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have been. And he never wanders past the cafeteria; not under the Captain’s light-sleeping watch. And then, breaking the pattern, Orange lets out a loud sigh and sits up. Without a word, she stands, and nearly without effort she lightly drags her bed snug against mine. 

“Just go to sleep,” she whispers, settling back into her sheets, breath fanning hot onto my side. “We’ll ask Brown if he was walking around in the morning.”

White turns over onto their other side, the issue now solved, and, finally, my will is strong enough to sleep.

“No, actually, I wasn’t walking around there that time,” Brown answers that morning, when the dark hours pass and he prepares for his own hours of rest. Lime, already gone, Orange and I wake and sleepily ask him the question of _were you walking around down by electrical at night_ at the sight of him. 

“Did you walk around at all?” Orange asks and I yawn. 

“Yeah, but at the beginning of my shift, right after dinner,” Brown responds, tucking himself into bed. “And I walked again, a few minutes ago, when Green came in for her shift. I kinda figured you guys would get spooked if I just walked around at night.”

Brown piles the bedsheets atop him, and we leave him quietly to discuss at the cafeteria. There, the others sit, just a few stragglers eating a late breakfast. White smiles warmly at us, but asks the question, “So? Who’s the phantom walking around at night? Brown?”

“Well, he said he never walked that night,” Orange responds, taking a seat and grabbing the cereal across the table. “I mean, you sure you and Blue weren’t just, I don’t know, checking on the wires again?”

White shrugs, and, in the middle of their cereal spoonfuls, replies, “Well, usually during the dark hours, it’s easy to hear if any lights are flickering in the hall or something’s clicking. That wakes me up, and I go and fix it. I didn’t hear any of that last night.”

“Well, what about footsteps--wouldn’t you have woken up if you heard footsteps too?” I ask. It’s not out of distrust, no, neither out of disbelief; _I trust Lime,_ I try to remind myself. _And she looked so scared._

And White pauses, both to reflect and to chew down another spoonful. In the end, they say, “I-I don’t know, I thought they were Lime’s.”

Before Orange is to begin cooking, and I am to help her, we find Blue at the Lower Engine, doing their daily rounds of checking on the wires around the place. We ask the same question. And they shrug the same. “No. I only go out during the dark hours if White hears something and wakes me up. But--hey, we always hear stuff on the ship. The floors have been creaking, you know, and maybe Lime thought those sounds were footsteps.”

After checking on the frame of the lower engine, White surveys the rest of the room, with a plate and a handmade sandwich in hand. And they reach the vents--which they, just a few days ago, screwed back down in place--which, somehow as always, lays unscrewed. White lets out a quick and frustrated _tch_ , bends to their knees, and whips our their screwdriver once more to fix. 

Orange and I leave them to it, just as Blue arrives with their bowl of cereal, and we head to the kitchen. I grab a food box from storage on route to the kitchen, and, laying it flat on the counter top, I open it. And find nothing. “What? It’s empty.”

And Orange turns around, quick, and pulls the box to her. “What? N-no. We just opened it, what, a week ago?”

From what I could remember, the box was barely halfway empty when we opened it yesterday. The dehydrated and frozen food had sat, double-wrapped and in tight clear film, and, as Orange said with relief, _enough to last a month._ Orange turns the box over, eyeing the corners and sides with narrowed eyes and tight shoulders. And she sets the box back down, an unsatisfied grumble settling on her face. She says, “There’s no holes or anything like before.” A pause. She rubs her temple, eliciting a difficult sigh. “I don’t think space mice did this.”

I venture around the counter, laying a hand on her shoulder for comfort. But I’m frustrated just the same. When it comes to Orange’s anger and stress, I’ve learned to not approach her like one does like with Lime or Green--reassurance, lighthearted comments, etc--and instead be honest. So I bring the box closer and inspect the brim and its lid. “Okay, so, no space mice. Last time, the box was ripped open and the food spilled out. And, I guess, this time, something was able to open the box and take it out by the bag?”

And Orange huffs out a breath, looking to me with her tired and crazed eyes. “Not _something_.”

She abandons the kitchen, marching down the halls with huffs of anger and exasperation. Behind her, I race, calling out, “Orange! Where’re you going?”

At the debrief room, Orange switches on one of the alarms--a green light, with a more peaceful _beep_ resounding through all the speakers--and waits placidly for the other crewmates to arrive. Black arrives first, followed by the other scientists, then one of the pilots (Green), then Lime, and lastly the engineers. And Cyan asks, as we all take a seat before her, “So, what’s wrong?”

“Someone here took an entire bag of food from storage,” Orange begins. And, she clarifies, “Food that was supposed to last for a month for all of us.” Everyone in the room gasps and murmurs. “Now, that box was perfectly fine when I opened it for dinner. So that means that whoever took the food did it-- _last night_.”

The last two words are whispered out of realization, and Orange looks to me with shock. Of course; and the corridor where Lime reported those footsteps are drastically close to the storage room. And, already with eyes on her, Lime stands to clarify herself. “Yes, I did take a walk, but not to steal the food. I-I didn’t even go to storage.”

“Well, where else could you go during the dark hours when everyone else is asleep and most of the rooms are empty?” Cyan asks, insincere. “But--look, no one here’s nonsense enough to steal food while we’re in space. So maybe the food was misplaced.”

“ _Well_ , where else can you place a bag of food other than the box that’s supposed to hold it?” Orange counters with a roll of her eyes. “Listen, I think in the past week or so we’ve learned that food is sacred. So whoever took it or ate it or did whatever with it, you need to come clean.”

“I don’t know, do you really think someone went through all that effort to take a box, open it, and cook it quietly enough to eat by themselves?” Blue asks. “I mean, I know I wouldn’t--plus, I don’t even know how to cook that dehydrated mush.”

And the eyes move to Orange, the only expert in cooking that _dehydrated mush_. And she crosses her arms. “There is no way I would make a big deal about how we need food to survive and waste that food anyway.”

“Well, White, did you wake up to any noise like someone was cooking?” I ask the engineer and light sleeper. Cooking the _dehydrated mush_ has a specific system in particular; a machine is used to re-hydrate and defrost the food that Orange herself is trained to us. And, from the past few weeks I’ve spent helping her prepare the food, the machine falls short of silent. 

“No, just heard Lime coming back into the room.”

And I turn to Orange. “In the kitchen, could you see if the machine or anything there was used or not? Maybe even smell an aroma?” (The smell of the rehydrated mush is very distinct).

And Orange furrows her eyebrows in deep thought. “No. No smell, the machine was clean like I left it, nothing taken or moved.”

“So, what, someone’s eating that dry, brittle stuff straight out of the bag?” Black asks from her seat, behind me. I twist my mouth in distaste at the thought of that; I’d expect nothing more than a sour taste from eating that _stuff_. 

“Maybe someone’s hoarding it for themselves,” Yellow suggests from across the room. And he fixes himself in his seat, with all the eyes tracking onto him. “N-not that I would do that. It makes no sense.”

“Nothing on this ship makes sense anymore,” Green mutters. And then, with exasperation, “Is no one gonna own up to this? Are we really gonna have to search through our own stuff?”

“We might just have to,” Orange affirms, maintaining a steely gaze. “Whoever took that just cost us a month. And, seeing that having our food boxes being opened without _my_ permission has happened before, it’s safe to say that they’re the one that made us turn back.”

That statement hangs in the air, with the implication that _they_ messed with the wires, _they_ turned off the lights, _they_ opened the vents. And we look amongst each other, these faces we’ve smiled at for five years, now with a doubt and wavering trust. Black meets my eyes, and then, she says, “Well, aside from Orange, Purple also has had frequent access to the food in the storage and in the kitchen. And she’s been helping Orange cook lately, so she probably also knows how to use the machine.”

“Purple was already in bed when I came back after hearing footsteps,” Lime defends. “I-In fact, everyone except for Brown was in bed when I came back.” _Came back from what?_

“Well, maybe, somehow, Purple or someone else went back to bed before you did,” Cyan responds, head in his hands.

“And how could someone do that?”

We take a moment to ponder such a question. For me, I consider the routes; Lime said she didn’t go to the storage, instead was coming back to the bunk room from down by electrical, and so anyone with a reason to hide from her would take a different route from the storage room. It still wouldn’t explain the footsteps; she heard it behind her. And then Yellow, lightens the room with a scoff--an amused approach, but it falls off unsettling--and says, “The vents, maybe.”

There comes a small pause of hesitance, and then a spark of clamors and disbelieving murmurs throughout the room. Orange runs a hand through her hair, her other shaking beside her, and I--just, on a whim--look precariously over my shoulder, to the corner of the room, where, as it always has been, sits another vent. And, if I can peer enough, I only imagine what unused screws lay strewn beside it.

Black takes notice of my gaze to the corner, and soon, as the murmurs quiet, everyone eyes that vent behind us. 

And then, Lime falls. 

  
  


**

In Medbay, we crowd around Lime, worriedly watching her rest her tired eyes. In that moment following her fall--more specifically, her _fainting_ \--we had frozen for a moment, unsure of how to act in the instance of our only medical professional fainting, but Black had stood first to carry her into her arms, and Yellow followed next with the order, _She needs something sugary, get her an energy drink._

Now, a haul to the Medbay and one sip of electrolytes later (popularly requested by Brown and some others before the mission, for the now-unused gym equipment, as exercise has dropped in importance compared to maintaining the ship), we wait for Lime to wake; all in a sequence of fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, during which we’ve reflected and pondered and regretted _so much_ for Lime. I consider the Captain for her--her only patient, her most important patient, and his failing health despite all attempts--and what loss it could be for her; I consider her volunteering for Yellow, and stepping down on the ship that forced us outside and out of safety; I consider these late nights, her restless eyes, her shaking hands. And I think, out of everyone, _no, not her--she’d never cause any of this._

As time passes on, we leave Lime on her own--periodically checking up on her, though--to sleep in silence. I retire to my room after helping Orange in the kitchen (after helping her prepare a new box of food, I sense that her still-seething anger needs to brew on her own as well), and it’s this first instance in a long time where I finally notice the book stuffed on the bottom shelf of my bedside table.

_Reporter Logs. Crew#1667. Purple#235._

It’s no emergency communicator, but, when it comes to abandoned ships, I decide to flip through it. I expect very little written--after all, not much is required from a ship while they’re in the Silent Zone. Only a certain standard of _interesting_ or _urgent_ is to be written, and from my experience on these missions, I find that there’s very little to write down in the Silent Zone. 

But I’m wrong. This _Purple_ ’s pages harbor more than _very little_. Some, half-way through, and others--gaining more as the pages progress--are filled to the brim. So I begin at the first page. 

_Date_ _XXX XX XXX___

_unusual ship activity:_

_-lights flickering_

_-engineers report rusting, breaking, wires_

_-food supplies draining drastically fast_

_-sounds in the vents_

I read the date again. If I can deduct properly, this crew noticed these things just a year into their mission. Now eagerly, I skim through these pages, as this Purple begins to describe their perils in detail. _Lights turned off on me in the bathroom,_ one page reported _._ Another, _Data won’t upload automatically. The vent in security was wide open. Brown said she felt as though she was being watched during her shift alone in the dark hours. Lime says they hear things at night outside of the bunkroom._

And then: _Lime is dead. Found body after the dark hours down by the lower engine. Body disposed of._

Another page. _Captain Red#399 is reporting signs of instability. They showed no remorse for Lime’s death. They ordered Brown and Green to burn gas to increase speed. Orange found a shred of their uniform ripped off in storage, where the food boxes were torn into. Perhaps by a brute force of strength. They deny stealing from the food supplies._

And the next, barely halfway through the book, and I can feel a _crack_. 

_I am trying to track down where this all began, to properly report to Home. But on all the missions I’ve been on, I’ve never encountered this before. Blue says the ship is falling apart. Orange says we won’t have food to last another year. And Lime is dead._

_She was bleeding when we found her. Captain says she tripped or she fell on something very hard. But I don’t believe that._

_We only left the ship once. During the dark hours, we heard a loud crash on the side of the ship; and we found that an unsuspecting piece of debris crashed into us. Our White and Blue left the hatch to survey the damage, and came back with small chunks of rock found stuck on the ship. We meant to throw it away in the garbage hatch. But a few months later I found our scientists surveying a piece of rock they kept._

_Could it be that rock that’s causing all this? This foreign object, that brought all this chaos onto our ship...._

  
Another page. _Cyan is dead. So is Black. And Blue. Captain insists it’s on negligence, on mistakes, on poor performance. But they all died the same. And we disposed of them the same._

_Captain denies it, but the rest of us believe it’s more than mistakes happening on this ship. Maybe it’s--something Captain refuses to believe--intentional. Murder. A harsh accusation, and none of us are tough enough to admit it to each other._

_I know I have to report this as soon as I can. I have to get answers, fast, but it’s difficult to survey the crewmate you’ve lived with for two years in a new light._

This Purple offers their list of suspicions. White was always one to get seconds; _could he possibly be capable of acting for more?_ Brown was growing more of her temper; _could she be driven to murder?_ And a couple days ago, Captain had choked on an unknown sharp object in the bowl Orange had served; _could they have intended much more than that?_ And Captain was growing unstable by the day, it was no doubt to this Purple and their crewmates that they were, most definite amongst them, capable of murder. 

And for themself? Purple claimed their innocence-- _I have nothing against this crew. And I have been nothing but assisting so far in this journey._

I reread those last few lines. _Murder_ . And of course, when this Purple puts it like this, it’s an obvious answer. What else could prove the tampered lights, tampered vents, draining food resources? The series of deaths? A concerning Captain? _Murder. A Captain murders their own crew._ And I think of my own Captain, his sullen face and weak laughs. _And he died._

As I turn the page, I drown out the thought of the possible--more than just a sudden infection, more than just a simple passing. I only focus on Purple’s thoughts here. 

_Captain is dead._

_We had to resort to such drastic measures; we couldn’t take it any longer. Captain was refusing their own role, their own title, and was growing violent. They punched a dent in the wall when Brown and Green refused to accelerate speed again. And during the dark hours, Green whispered to us, shaken to the core, that the Captain had threatened both the pilots--“Get me out of here quick. Don’t make me hurt you.”_

_And when a Captain threatens, their word is serious. So we had to act fast. Orange served the food, and with a few doses of whatever we could find in the cabinets in Medbay, Captain passed in a much calmer manner he hadn’t allowed for our deceased crew._

_Just as we were preparing to dispose of his body, his mouth began to secrete some liquid. Blood, or the leftover food, we thought, but it was a black, sticky liquid--thick to the touch, and clingy like sap. White touched it first, and it moved quick--shocking to our eyes, it carried itself by its edges as if it were a spider searching for skin to bite. White said it_ _bit_ _him after he swatted it off himself._

_But the Captain is disposed of. And the black liquid was cleaned up._

_It seems like insanity is contagious. And although I think it to be absurd to believe that that black substance transferred some of Captain’s instability to White, the engineer is acting the part. The lights flicker more often, sometimes the power goes out for hours, and we have found ourselves in the dark on a stationary ship far too often._

_We have complained to White about this. But when we check on his work--his so-called ‘repairs’-- we find more damaged and splintered seams than whole parts. We confronted him about it, and he threatened me with a wrench. “What do you know, reporter? I’ll teach you something here.”_

And Purple goes on, about plotting another ill-intended dinner for the next aggressor. And it seems that White is just as oblivious, eating spoon after spoon to his death. And Purple notes the resurface of the black liquid, this time aiming to contain the body in the laboratory for study. Their words lose their developed fear and suspicion, and I am reaching near the end of the book to find their conclusion. 

_Us survivors have gotten to the idea that the black liquid does indeed transfer some sort of insanity. Yellow explained that it acts like a virus, invading the body and its defenses, speedily marching up to the brain. And there’s not much to do with it, Green concludes, other than to save a sample to send Home and to dispose of it._

_Through trial and error, we have learned that the black substance stands invincible to water and fire, it can move at lightspeed to make contact with anyone’s skin, and if someone, indeed, comes in contact with it (a finger, a hand, a leg) then the limb must be severed to prevent the substance from traveling to their brain. And we all have learned, through all our losses, that it was better to lose a hand than one’s own insanity._

_Our final solution: dispose of it the same way as the bodies. Carefully, we zipped white’s body into his suit, closed it tight, and sent him out the hatch._

_It’s only been minutes since the disposal, but I already feel at peace._

And, after that entry, the pages go blank after a while. I flip through, still no answer provided for the abandoned ship, until I--”Purple!” I rise to my feet fast, and for unknown instinct I stuff the book in my back pocket. Blue wipes the sweat on their brow. “Come on, Lime’s awake.”

Hurriedly, we run down the halls to Medbay. There, the rest of the crew--except Green, this time--hover around Lime’s bed, Orange holding a tray with a glass of water and a bowl of soup. I try not to reflect on that book, on _that_ Orange’s sinister meals. The crew welcomes us with relieved smiles and greetings. 

Lime sits on the bed, wearing a weak smile. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Oh, of course we would,” Black assures. Orange slides the tray onto the nurse’s lap. “Now, come on, eat.”

But the nurse’s relief crumbles down to dread--one that matches the same distressed, wide eyes hours ago in the debriefing room as she stared at the closed vent in the corner. She pushes the tray away. “N-no. I can’t.” We begin our protests, but she sits upright, rubbing her eyes. “No, not while we’re in this--our food has been...tampered with, stolen, and we don’t know why. I can’t be one of the reasons why we’re starving in a few months, just because of one single meal.”

“You need to eat,” Black grovels, crossing her arms. “There’s a reason why you fainted. You haven’t been eating much.”

“I’ll eat it at dinner,” Lime says, a small assurance to Orange. “But right now, we need to figure this thing out. Something’s happening on this ship.”

For a second, I consider my silence. Especially considering how Lime fainted earlier, I should keep it to myself. But I see the way we cast glances now--suspicion, doubt, discomfort. I look at that soup Orange has given Lime, uneaten and untainted. 

“Wait,” I say, pulling out the book from my back pocket. “I got this when we went back to that ship, when I checked out the bunkroom there. This is the Reporter Logs of that crew’s Purple.” The interest piques and Black reaches a hand out, asking for the book. I hand it to her. “That crew had the same weird activity as we do now--the lights, the wires, the food, and the vents. Then people started dying. And the Captain was acting weird. The crew believed he was murdering people, so they poisoned him. And then they found this weird black liquid, secreting from him--and their engineer was infected. And he started to act weird too. They poisoned him next, and ejected the body out of the ship.”

As Black flips through the notebook, pausing at every few pages, the rest begin to crowd around said book with suspicion. And then, Cyan asking, “But the ship was abandoned. What happened next?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I never finished it.”

“Well, is that what’s happening?” Lime asks, peering at the book herself. Black flips onto the page where Purple lists her suspicions. “A-an infectious _thing_ is being passed on from ship to ship? We checked the food, disinfected ourselves--how could _that_ have gotten on our ship?”

Black, unsettled with the book, lets Yellow take it. And I realize. “W-well, they said something about a rock.” Yellow looks up first, then Black, then Cyan. “The scientists were studying it.”

Immediately, Yellow protests. “The lab showed nothing about that rock--nothing could’ve possible come from it that could... _inject_ someone. I-I’m sure a virus like that wouldn’t be able to survive in space, even.”

“Well, what does it mean?” Brown asks, at the foot of the bed, a bit too muddled in his thoughts. We all are. “It can’t happen to us.”

“But it is,” I confirm. “That Purple found a way to get rid of the infection. We can, too. But for now, there’s something we need to figure out.” In another attempt, I try to speculate everyone--Lime and her tired, yet trying face; Orange and her doubtful eyes; Brown and his rising worry...All familiar faces, ones that, hours ago, I wouldn’t dare to cross. 

But here, in space, a doubt is a hard earned truth. A severe statement. Space shows no mercy, tests everyone, and in this tightly wound ship we have no choice. We deserve the truth. “There’s an imposter on this ship.”

[second part coming out soon!]


End file.
